Why It's Easier to Fight Than to Love

February 2, 2009

J.D. Trout says we need to be our brother’s keeper. The Loyola University philosopher is leading the charge these days for  “empathic policies” that will narrow the divide between the rich and the poor. Trout agrees with President Obama that the United States government has an “empathy deficit,” and he’s written a book called The Empathy Gap to call us to a new era of empathy. He writes a blog called “The Greater Good” that calls for things like putting more supermarkets in poor neighborhoods.

Oh, and he hasn’t spoken to his brother in about six years.

Trout’s view of brother love was explored in a short but to-the-point interview in this week’s New York Times Magazine. Trout argues in the interview for a social policy in which Americans move away from the “hedonic vomitorium” of consumerism and toward a new commitment to others. When asked why his book says nothing about the role of churches in caring for the poor, Trout says: “The concerns addressed in the book–improved education, health care, existence above the poverty level–are too important to be left to the tender mercies of charity.” But then the interview takes a personal turn.

Journalist Deborah Solomon asks the empathetic philosopher if he is his own brother’s keeper, and clarifies that she means his, well, real brother. Trout acknowledges that he hasn’t spoken to his brother in years.

This answer is telling, though not because of the particular details of the story. Trout’s brother sounds like a horrible guy. He owns strip clubs and the philosopher (rightly) disapproves of the way this treats women. The brother also wouldn’t visit when Trout would come home from college (too busy at the stip bars). What’s telling is the way the philosopher dismisses what seems like his own close-to-home lack of brother-keeping, and what it tells us about how all of us can so easily do the exact same thing.

Trout says his estrangement from his brother is “no big deal” even though he is a national spokesman for empathy.

“In the biblical norm, I don’t read ‘brother’ as meaning your blood brother,” he explains. “We have an obligation to give to as many people as we can the opportunity to be successful, whether they are your own kids or kids that are otherwise invisible to you.”

It’s easy to shrug our shoulders and dismiss this “national spokesman” as a hypocrite. But, before you do, notice here one of the strategies of hypocrisy, because we’re all vulnerable to it. Trout doesn’t reject the idea of love and brother-keeping. It’s hard for him to do so because those concepts are embedded in his conscience (Rom 2:12-16).